A grieving California father is running 240 miles to the Pacific Ocean to raise awareness and funds for children with childhood cancer.
Matt Meo, whose 10-year-old son Landon Meo died of brain cancer in 2022, started his Auburn Pacific 240 journey from Auburn to Point Reyes on Feb. 25 — with the goal of giving three “cancer families” $10,000 each at the finish line and an additional $10,000 to cancer research.
People can donate on the project’s PayPal page and use Matt’s live tracker to see his running progress on the 240-mile route.
Matt, who described the mission as an “insane 5-day adventure” on Instagram, will also be carrying photographs — of his son, children from those three “cancer families,” other kids with cancer, survivors of the disease and young ones who have died from it — during his run.
Matt is dedicating certain miles to specific children along his route.
“We’re running together. I’ll be carrying these 63 pictures with me during the run. 14 fighters, 24 survivors, 25 forever. Some local, some as far as Ireland, U.K. and Australia,” he wrote on Instagram.
According to a Feb. 26 Instagram video update, Matt had completed 77 miles and raised $17,600 of the project’s $40,000 goal.
The three families who will meet Matt at the finish line near the Pacific Ocean will use the money raised to help their three kids — 5-year-old Elias, 18-year-old Malachi and 4-year-old Arya — on their cancer journeys.“The further I go, the more I feel him,” Matt told local news outlet KCRA. “I just kinda let it happen naturally … it’s super powerful because it’s leaning on the strength that he showed me … he showed me how to live life the right way, and I’m just trying to emulate that.”
“This is about mental endurance, it’s not about physical endurance,” he added. “Seeing my son go through what he went through, knowing what all of these kids go through, that’s way harder than 240 miles.”
